The present invention relates generally to electronic business management, and relates more particularly to the creation, editing and mining of electronic business documents. Specifically, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for creating and editing electronic documents.
A number of systems exist for the creation, editing, management and data mining of electronic business documents (e.g., electronic contracts). Typically, these systems implement only one kind of document type. For example, one known type of system implements a structured document type (e.g., hypertext markup language (HTML) or extensible markup language (XML)) that is easy to parse, insert and modify. Although such document types are well-suited for activities such as electronic contract negotiation online or over a network (e.g., the Internet), the security functions provided thereby are limited.
Other systems have attempted to implement document types that enable tighter security control, such as portable document format (PDF) document types. However, these document types typically allow only limited editing or modification (e.g., line editing), which makes them less well-suited for activities that will include negotiation or revision of documents.
Further systems employ an editor that offers some security features and editing tracking functions, such as certain word processor applications. However, the document types implemented in such systems are not as flexible as structured document types, and the available security features are not as strong as those offered by PDF document types.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for creating and editing electronic documents.